Congratulations on Getting a Year Older!

Honestly, we’re not sure why anyone would care about this. Our editor pretty much forced us in to writing this one, so reader beware. We personally wanted to write a something about a dude who totally used to bang Princess Di and knows what’s really going on with her right now. Spoiler alert: it had vampires in it. Now who knows when you’ll get to hear it? Probably a few days from now.

So here it goes. You’re a douchebag who’s been working on a novel that will “totally change everything, man.” It’s a largely autobiographical work, except for the parts about using art history to solve crime and the parts where you’re successful with women, which glorifies your life and attempts to eliminate all the negative qualities you have a person. It casts you as a sort of characterless everyman as a result.

You’ve been shopping it around, sending brief selections of it to various publishers with notes that wax and wane between threatening and fawning. You’ve offered at least one person a handjob in exchange for a publishing deal, but you haven’t received any responses.

And you’re not going to today, by the way. But you are going to see a new book by Dan Brown in a window today. Since you’re a terrible author Dan Brown is your fucking idol and you’ll start to hyperventilate a little when you see it. You’ll pick it right up off the shelf and start to flip through it, calculating your bank balance and seeing if you can pick it up and still afford to eat this week.

The first few lines will be exactly the same as the opener of your manuscript. Puzzled, you’ll read on, finding your words splayed like a tipsy frat girl upon each page. The only difference you’ll notice between your manuscript and the finished book will be the name of the main character and the title. Apparently Seamus McGee, protagonist of Escape from the Hall of Titties wasn’t edgy enough for Dan Brown.

You haven’t gotten there yet, but there will also be a scene where a priest rapes a man which Brown has inserted in order to continue his tradition of writing inexplicable, stupid shit.

You’ll be so angry that you’ll want to scream and tear the book to shreds and then light the shreds on fire and then piss on them to put them out. You’ll be flexing your bony little writer arms, getting ready to do it, when a Korean man in the store will attack you with a broom and force you to leave. He will not be associated with the store in any way.

You’ll flee back to your shithole apartment, tears streaming down your face. You’re going to send quite the email to Dan Brown tonight, but for now you’re going to have a cry and lament having accomplished nothing at the tender age of 25.

Congratulations on getting a year older!